Dian Fossey (1932 - 1985)

Dian Fossey was a US primatologist and conservationist known for undertaking an extensive study of mountain gorilla groups from 1966 until her 1985 murder. She studied them daily in the mountain forests of Rwanda, initially encouraged to work there by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. Gorillas in the Mist, a book published two years before her death, is Fossey's account of her scientific study of the gorillas at Karisoke Research Center and prior career. It was adapted into a 1988 film of the same name. Fossey was one of the foremost primatologists in the world, a member of the so-called "Trimates", a group formed of prominent female scientists originally sent by Leakey to study great apes in their natural environments, along with Jane Goodall who studied chimpanzees, and Birutė Galdikas, who studied orangutans. During her time in Rwanda, she actively supported conservation efforts, strongly opposed poaching and tourism in wildlife habitats, and made more people acknowledge sapient gorillas. Fossey was brutally murdered in her cabin at a remote camp in Rwanda in December 1985. It has been theorized that her murder was linked to her conservation efforts. source: Wikipedia

Known for
Study of gorillas

Gorillas in the Mist (1983)

Find more
Wikipedia

Works based on
Gorillas in the Mist (1985), biographical drama

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011), BBC documentary using her story in a larger story of ecology and post-colonialism

Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist (2017), a three-hour series, aired on National Geographic Channel